


Steady Until

by Katherine



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Companion was shaking from wound fever and, paradoxically, from the biting winter cold. He had willed himself still while his Herald was near. She might guess, having seen the state of his injury, but he kept his outer self and his shared emotion steady until she was well along the northern path deeper into Valdemar. </p>
<p>There was a lot of time to think while he was resting to heal in the plank-walled small stable. He would survive this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steady Until

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydrangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangea/gifts).



The Companion was shaking from wound fever and, paradoxically, from the biting winter cold. He had willed himself still while his Herald was near. She might guess, having seen the state of his injury, but he kept his outer self and his shared emotion steady until she was well along the northern path deeper into Valdemar. 

There was a lot of time to think while he was resting to heal in the plank-walled small stable. He would survive this. Out by the border here the hardscrabble local villagers did not understand him; the lessons of story and song did not quite reach belief. Against that background the mission had begun with the Herald in disguise and the Companion at pains to seem an ordinary horse. But except for boredom, the locals' dull looking after him as if he were only a horse would be sufficient. So long as there was enough time before the threat returned. If that force returned once he had even will-fueled ability to go into battle yet before he was well enough healed... Then he would protect the people so far as a lone Companion could, even to the point of terribly lowering his very thin reserves.

His Herald would return to him as soon as her vital part of the mission was done.

For the moment he had passing company. The apprentice stableboy, a wide-eyed child, brought him a woolen blanket. It smelled of old stored hay, and was rough textured, but once the boy put it on his back the weight was a comfort. It grounded him, so that his shivering felt less overtaking and more a discomfort that would pass.

The physical grounding oddly helped also with the mental distance from his Herald. The feel of her mind was stretched thin to near nothing by the increasing distance. She had not the slightest sense that their bond was weaker than it should be considering her Gifts. She assumed only that was the strength available to her particular bond with her Companion.

He was selfishly glad that their bond gave them the emotional tone of each other's mind but no Mindspeech. It would hurt to speak in her mind, calling her "Chosen" while hiding the details behind. He had know how this would be when he looked into her eyes and pushed his semblance of Choosing to her.

She would never know that their bond was less until that someday to come when she looked in Taver's eyes and was Chosen at last, again and truly, for her place as Queen's Own.


End file.
